The Wall Street Journal - 14.03.2020 - 15.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, March 14 - 15, 2020 |D11

RUMBLE SEAT/DAN NEIL

McLaren’s Elva Project

Says ‘So Long’ to Windshields

YOU NEVER SEEsnow globes

from the inside.

Flurries were flying in Woking,

Surrey, two weeks ago, the morning

I visited the McLaren Technology

Centre for a briefing on project Elva.

This stunning 804-hp two-seater—

with a form language like Usain

Bolt’s quadriceps—is the latest in

McLaren’s Ultimate Series, joining

the Senna and 250-mph Speedtail. If

the former is thene plus ultraof

customer racing cars and the latter

the nth-degree GT, the Elva means

to carve out an experiential space in

between, said Ian Digman, McLaren

head of global product planning. In

fewest words, a sort of radical trans-

parency on both road and track.

Which is how Elva came to be

missing its windscreen.

This is new. This is different. For

as long as motor vehicles have

moved fast enough to need them,

automobiles have had windscreens,

or windshields. What we might

think of as the exceptions—open-

wheel competition cars, dry lakes

speedsters, certain classes of endur-

ance prototypes—generally aren’t.

Almost all such machines, past and

present, had some sort of wind

blocker, if but a curved bit of Per-

spex for the driver to huddle behind.

The Elva joins a recent group of

multimillion-dollar mega-sports

roadsterssanswindshields, includ-

ing the Ferrari Monza SP; the Mer-

cedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling

Moss edition; and Aston Martin’s

V12 Speedster. Each outrageous,

each as phallic as Roman statuary.

But each has a problem so deep

as to have gone unrecognized until

the Elva. At speeds above about 30

mph, occupant comfort requires the

use of helmets to cope with buffet-

ing. It’s not mandatory, of course, if

you don’t mind looking like you’ve

been blown out of an airlock. But

helmets are hard on hairdos too.

The Elva is the first production

road car I am aware of that has at-

tempted to evolve past the confine-

ment of helmets and the visual ob-

struction of windscreens. “It’s about

bringing the outside in,” said Mr.

Digman, noting the bodywork flow-

ing up and the doors. Groovy.

In place of a windscreen, Elva will

debut a technology called Active Air

Management System (AAMS). When

engaged, it generates two air flows

streaming over the cockpit: One

glances off the low, curvaceous wind

deflector rising out of the front

bodywork, with an energy propor-

tional to vehicle speed.

The other airflow is scooped up

in a low-mounted grille intake and

turned 135 degrees. Now ducted up

and slightly forward, this high pres-

sure flow intercepts the deflected

airflow, bending the combined flows

over the cockpit.

Meanwhile, streaming air cling-

ing to the hood wants to be drawn

down, below face level, following

the Elva’s curving scuttle and dash.

And so the Elva’s historically

unique, eye-of-the-hurricane gestalt:

Driver and passenger motoring at

highway speeds, talking at normal

volume, as warm or as cool as de-

sired and, looking out, seeing noth-

ing... but scenery. No helmet limiting

their peripheral vision as if looking

through a well-padded porthole, sti-

fling breath and sense of smell. And

no heavy, roof-supporting “A” pillars

either, which clumsily bracket exis-

tence in almost all modern cars.

The Elva is the motoring equiva-

lent of a horizonless pool.

Under the right conditions the

Elva’s system can billow precipita-

tion out of the way, over the car, so

the occupants stay dry. Heading up

the mountain to Gstaad? With the

AAMS active, falling snow will

swirl past but never settle. As de-

scribed, it’s the snowman’s view

from inside the snow globe.

What about bugs? I asked. Will

they be deflected too? “It depends

on the mass of the bug,” said An-

drew Kay, Elva project chief engi-

neer, being completely serious.

What about stones thrown up by

trucks? Overtalk...inaudible.... In any

event, McLaren expects all occu-

pants will be wearing helmets on

piste and will only engage the AAMS

bareheaded at moderate speeds.

When activated the AAMS signifi-

cantly increases the car’s drag and

alters the front-to-rear aero balance,

said Mr. Kay. The Elva’s hyperkinetic

rear wing compensates, instantly

and automatically, according to the

car’s multi-mode control algorithms.

I hoped, for snow-globe-viewing

reasons, that the flurries would con-

tinue for my test ride at Dunsfold

Park. But the skies cleared and the

temperature rose to a balmy 2 C.

Also, the prototype’s climate sys-

tems weren’t connected, so no warm

air was blowing through the low-

mounted, fit-for-purpose registers.

Test driver Gareth Howell and I

bundled up and took off in the test

mule for several highway-speed

passes down the runway, first with

then without helmets. With no cover

to protect me, and a 15-knot head-

wind, the chill factor on the surface

of my face was something like -9 C,

or 16 F. Tears streamed from behind

my mirrored aviators and my smile

was frozen in a numb, dumb rictus. I

could hear Mr. Howell laughing.

After a quick pit stop to allow

technicians to position the active-

aero surfaces, we returned to the

circuit, this time enveloped in an in-

visible but strangely tangible bub-

ble. At 60 mph, the wind was so still

I could have lit a cigarette. I could

hear Mr. Howell speak in a normal,

non-shouty way. I raised my arms

and felt the air around me, trying to

locate edges of the bubble, like Mar-

cel Marceau doing “Man in a Box.”

Could this technology be applied

to other cars, other kinds of vehi-

cles? “It’s not something we have

looked at,” said Dan Parry Williams,

McLaren’s director of engineering

design. But it’s such a motoring

pleasure, I offer. It should be shared.

I wonder: Would McLaren vigor-

ously defend its intellectual prop-

erty should imitators come along?

The answer was a gentle but firm

yes. So much for transparency.

‘It’saboutbringingthe

outsidein...creatinga

newkindoftransparency

betweenthedriverand

theenvironment.’

MCLAREN; SON OF ALAN (DIAGRAM)

MY TECH ESSENTIALS

Dennis Quaid

The actor, co-founder of Audio Up and host of

the forthcoming podcast ‘Dennissance’ on

cutting the cord, catching up with the Queen and

owning a robot that tends to very private needs

I started playing

Sudoku in the pa-

per about six years

ago and now the

Sudoku Joy appis

the only game I

play on my iPhone.

Plugging in the

numbers while in

my trailer between

takes is a good

way to turn my

brain off—to put a

bookmark in what

I’m doing and put

work on hold.

I think I had seven BMWs in a row before I bought my 2012

Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. It’s really a great-handling auto-

mobile—basically a four-door sports car. The V8 biturbo en-

gine is impressive and I just love the way it growls.

I stayed in a Las Vegas hotel room

that had a smart toilet and I

thought it was pretty cool. So

for about a year now I’ve had

my ownToto smart toilet.You

walk into the room, it knows

you’re there and it opens itself up

for you. It’s like your friendly helper.

THE AIR OF MY WAYS/HOW A CAR WITHOUT A WINDSHIELD REALLY WORKS

1.The McLaren

Elva’s powered

wind deflector

rises out of the

vehicle hood in

operation.

2.Multichannel

air scoop in the

hood pressur-

izes and re-

routes airflow,

turning it

around and up-

ward at 135 de-

grees, creating

an area of low

pressure in the

cockpit.

3.Aero-shaped

dash draws air

“attached” to

Elva’s hood down

below the occu-

pants head level,

increasing com-

fort, reducing

noise levels and

helmet buffeting.

4.Windowless

doors conceal

tubular plenums

that supply

cooling air and

charge air to

the twin-turbo

4.0-liter V8.

I play an early-’80sFender Stratocaster

that I got at Norman’s Rare Guitars on

Ventura Boulevard in L.A. around

2001. It’s easy to play and it’s
      such a workhorse. You can
      drop it and it still keeps its
      tune. I also play a Casio
      PX-360BK digital piano that’s
      really versatile with all kinds
      of sounds built into it.

When writing songs I’ll

wear myBose Quiet-

Comfort 35 II noise-

canceling headphones

so the house isn’t

forced to listen to me

play them 40 or 50

times every night.

The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in itsarticles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets.

I’ve been so busy

lately I haven’t had

a chance to watch

much TV, but I still

trytocatch“The

Windsors”on CNN,

usually on demand.

I’ve always had an

interest in the

Royal family. After making “The Parent Trap,” I

had a chance to be received by the Queen when

she came to the London premiere in 1998. Hayley

Mills who was in the original film came, too. Man,

I had such a crush on Hayley when I was a kid.

—Edited from an interview by Chris Kornelis

I really love my

Wahl Shaper cord-

less electric shaver.

It’s fantastic, it’s

small, it’s reliable

and it’s very inex-

pensive. I usually

don’t like electric

razors because they

usually only do

about half the job.

But this one really

does get it done.

STEER CLEAR

The Elva swaps a standard

windshield for its Air Active

Management System that

keeps the driver dry.

FENDER (GUITAR); GETTY IMAGES (THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF SUSSEX)

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GEAR & GADGETS

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